


The same blue grievances

by just_a_wavefunction



Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: (!!!), (the latter doesn't always work), Angst, Ash Lynx Lives, Ash Lynx and Okumura Eiji Go to Japan, Banter, Depression, Healing, Hiking, M/M, Optimistic Ending, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, even though neither of them are doing too great, mentions of past csa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-09
Updated: 2019-10-09
Packaged: 2020-11-28 16:37:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20969690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/just_a_wavefunction/pseuds/just_a_wavefunction
Summary: Ash and Eiji are doing their best to heal. It's still pretty fucking difficult, though. Also, the whole hiking thing was Eiji's idea, obviously, but Ash doesn't mind nearly as much as he pretends to.Or: One good day in the life of Eiji and Ash, interspersed with the memories of a lot of bad days. But that's alright, because the leopard makes it down the mountain in the end.





	The same blue grievances

**Author's Note:**

> okay listen
> 
> banana fish hit me harder than that truck shorter was driving hit the fish market in episode 5. i watched everything twice back to back and absolutely cried my eyes out the second time. it's one of those shows that won't let me rest til i write something, and one of those fics that won't let me rest til i post it, so i'm posting it even though i honestly don't know (but then again when do i ever)
> 
> (i kind of wish series were just allowed to switch genre in-between seasons, and we could get a slice-of-life/drama season 2 in which ash lives and gets to work through his trauma)
> 
> anyway! i don't need to explain to anyone that these two deserve some happiness, we're all on the same page there, but with what they've gone through i don't think it's going to be easy for either of them, so that's the line i'm trying to walk here. i hope i succeed.
> 
> <3

“Are we there yet?” Ash says while trying very hard not to pant like an over-eager dog. The air isn't that cold, but his nose is starting to burn from it.

A few steps ahead of him, Eiji throws him a shit-eating grin over his shoulder; he's not even out of breath, the bastard. “Getting tired already?”

“It's not my fault that your country doesn't have enough oxygen for everyone.”

“You and your poor big-city lungs. Maybe we should wait for a car to pass by, so you can breathe in the fumes instead.”

Ash huffs in annoyance and glares at his companion; Eiji waits for him to catch up.

The reason Ash had wanted to die in the library, aside from all the symbolic bullshit about it being the only place he'd ever truly felt at peace etc., was the smell, mostly. He wasn't going to stand there and claim that the smell of books was the best part about reading, like some idiots liked to, but it definitely beat the stench of the streets by a mile, and it was soothing, even more so than the hushed quiet and the cosy, eye-friendly lights.

So naturally, when he woke up in a hospital bed, forced to think about all the other times he'd woken up in a hospital bed, the smell of antiseptics burning his nose was what pissed him off the most.

The knife went in deep, the doctor told him later, he nearly didn't make it. He shouldn't have made it, was what Ash heard. He wasn't meant to make it. He hadn't wanted to make it. But, the doctor continued, he would make it.

The doctor then left Ash with this information like there was nothing else to say, like that was all he needed to know. Like somehow, saving Ash's life was the most important thing she'd done that day. And fuck, to her, it probably was. She couldn't have known who she'd saved there, after all.

“Good thing you called the ambulance so quickly,” she said before closing the door behind her, which was a strange thing to say because Ash didn't remember calling an ambulance.

He did remember seeing Lao's not quite motionless body and dialling something on his phone and telling a person an address that may have been the library's, and okay, maybe he hadn't wanted to die quite as much as he thought he did, maybe he was just not cut out for a peaceful exit, maybe life wouldn't even let him have that.

Ash breathed in deep, because apparently that was something he was still allowed to do, and seriously, there should be rules against that kind of shit. He breathed, and he thought, fine.

Fine.

“Fine,” he said out loud, defiant, petulant almost, into the quiet of the hospital room, to nobody but the beeping of his heart monitor. Fine.

I'll live, then.

“Look,” Eiji says, stopping dead in his tracks to crouch on the ground.

Ash comes over and huddles next to him.

“That's just a regular violet,” he points out.

“I know what it is,” Eiji says.

“Let me guess, you're going to reveal to me that it has some super-deep hidden meaning.”

“No.” Eiji turns his head slightly; up close, his gentle smile hits Ash like a punch to the gut. “I just think it's pretty.”

“Oh my God,” Ash says and leans over to kiss Eiji on the lips, quickly. He straightens up and starts walking without looking back. “Let's keep going.”

When he was little, Ash liked lynxes for all of the reasons normal kids like lynxes: they're cute and cool and fluffy and will rip your face off if you cross them.

He'd also read the story of a lynx, once, who got caught in a bear trap and gnawed its own leg off, just sat there in terrible pain and methodically tore through its own flesh and bones, all to be free again.

When his coach made him come to his house for the second time, and every time after that, this was what he thought of. Patiently chewing through tendons, eating himself away so he could survive.

“Do you have to keep ringing that bell?”

“It's against bears.”

“There are no bears here.”

“Yes, because I am ringing the bell.”

Ash sighs, pretending to accept his fate. Then, when Eiji believes himself safe, he lunges and grabs the bear bell away from him, pushing them both into a patch of wet grass in the process.

“Ow!” Eiji cries out before pushing back and rolling them over. Ash snickers while keeping the bell out of Eiji's reach.

“When we get mauled to death,” Eiji says, straddling his hips, “I'm blaming you.”

Ash relaxes at the familiar position and lets his arms drop on Eiji's thighs, stroking gently. There's some moss tickling his neck, and the ground smells of damp earth and flowers. His side is throbbing, very faintly, like it always does in this kind of weather, but the tight press of Eiji's thigh against the old wound is soothing even though it makes it hurt a bit more.

“Hey, don't judge,” he says with a grin, and adds in English, “I happen to like bears.”

Eiji frowns. “I'm not a bear.”

“Ah, well.” With a sigh, Ash pushes himself up and Eiji off him. “Can't have it all, I guess.”

Eiji rolls his eyes and holds out a hand to help him up. Ash takes it. He doesn't give him the bell back, though.

Eiji's family didn't like him.

At first, Ash thought – and granted, it was a fucking naive thing to think – that it might be the language barrier. By the time he had enough Japanese down for the smallest of small talks, he'd long realised that it wasn't a matter of language, it was a matter of Eiji coming back to his family in a wheelchair with a bullet wound in his side.

He could't blame them, exactly.

It didn't matter, Ash told himself as he smiled his way through dinner and washed dishes and accepted cups of tea. He deserved it. He deserved every bit of hatred from the people who loved Eiji, because he loved Eiji and hated himself, too, so any resentment would be extremely hypocritical. Besides, it had to be quite disturbing for the family to hear Ash scream himself awake at night, even though they were far too polite and tactful to ever mention it, of course, tiptoeing around him like they weren't first-hand witnesses to his damages, only ever glancing at him with fear and bewilderment when they thought he wasn't looking.

Eiji's sometimes came to his guest room, on these nights. He sat with him, never touching. Ash was grateful for it.

When he awoke from a particularly bad one (the more recent memories were always the worst), Ash snuck into the kitchen and poured himself a glass of water, trying very hard not to drop it in the sink and shatter it. Then he heard the footsteps.

He didn't even think, which, honestly, is how all of his problems start, always. The knife was in the knife block, and then it was in his hands, and then it was at a throat, and the throat was Eiji's grandmother's.

He didn't break skin, didn't even touch her, obviously, because he wasn't a fucking amateur, but he felt like he'd stabbed her all the same.

“I'm sorry,” he said, still holding the damn knife, why couldn't he just put it away, “I'm so, so sorry – ”

The grandmother stared at him with wide eyes, then turned on her heel and went back into the hallway. Ash tried to get his breathing under control, even though he could feel it all crashing down around him. He had to leave immediately, that much was obvious – and why, again, had he thought he could do this? Had it been it Sing's idea? It probably had been, the sentimental bastard –

The footsteps were back, but he didn't freak out this time. The grandmother set a glass bottle on the low dinner table, along with a heavy book, before kneeling in front of it.

“Go get some glasses, please,” she said, slow enough for him to understand even with his basic Japanese. She didn't look at him.

He obeyed without hesitation. Maybe she'd called the cops, maybe she was about to poison him, but he didn't care because he'd just held a knife to the throat of Eiji's grandmother.

She poured them both a generous measure of sake and flipped the book open; it was a photo album, Ash realised. She started talking, then, words too quick and too complex for Ash to follow, so he stared at the pictures instead – a young man in a uniform who looked a lot like Eiji; the same man, later, more grown, an arm around a beautiful woman who could only be the grandmother, with a smile that looked a bit frozen; their wedding, where the smile looked genuine; a quiet moment at the beach; a picture of them at the top of a mountain; the man again, alone, standing on the veranda of their house, looking out at the rain, a small child in his arms. Then, all of a sudden, nothing.

Ash didn't understand half of it. He still felt the tears prick his eyes.

The next morning, he overheard Eiji and his mother have a stern talk in the living room. His name dropped several times, as well as the grandmother's, and then the name of Eiji's university, for some reason. Their voices were calm, controlled, but somehow Ash knew they were practically screaming at each other.

“What do you think of this?” Eiji asked him later that day. He pointed at his laptop's screen; there were a couple of photos of a small apartment in the city. It looked nice, cosy. It made Ash want to move in immediately.

It also made Ash unreasonably angry, all of a sudden – that Eiji should have to leave his family, all because Ash couldn't be more than the sum of his parts, and that Eiji accepted this with such nonchalance like it didn't even matter to him.

“I can live on my own, you know,” he lied. “You don't need to come with me out of pity.”

Something hardened in Eiji's eyes.

“Not everything is just about you, Ash,” he said.

They do stop for a lunch break when Eiji finally takes pity on him.

Ash sits on a flat rock and stretches out his legs, then takes a few deep gulps of water out of his bottle. Eiji fishes his thermos out of his backpack and pours himself some tea. He takes a small sip, then frowns.

“You spiked that,” he says. “Again.”

“Come on,” Ash grins. “What's the point of drinking tea if there isn't any booze in it?”

“It's good for your health. Not that you'd know anything about that.” He takes out the box full of onigiri they made the night before. “Here. The lumpy ones are yours.”

“They're not lumpy,” Ash corrects, “they're abstract. Artistic, if you will. I refuse to be imprisoned by your normative triangles. I'm a free spirit, you see.”

Eiji snorts. “That you are.”

The first time they kissed, not counting the stunt that Ash had pulled back in New York and now felt like a lifetime away, was not one that Ash liked to dwell on very much.

They were a couple of weeks into living in their new apartment, which, Eiji assured him, was very much for his own benefit because it was closer to his university, and it was high time he moved out of his family home, anyway. Eiji was sitting on the carpet, sorting through some pictures for a photography assignment, a look of deep concentration on his face. Ash was watching him, bored out of his mind, making random garbled noises to see if he could get Eiji to snap at him.

It wasn't working, so Ash had to resort to other methods. He hopped off his spot on the sofa, went to sit in front of Eiji and picked one of the photos up.

“This one's kind of bad,” he said.

He didn't know why he said it, because it really wasn't a bad picture. It was great, actually, Eiji was an amazing photographer and had a way better eye for this stuff than him, so why was he being like that? He could chalk it up to friendly teasing, but he'd been feeling needles under his skin all day, and it came out a lot harsher than he ever meant to.

“It's not,” Eiji said patiently. “You just have bad taste.”

Eiji's hair had been getting fairly long; some of the strands were hanging down into his eyes. Ash brushed them away with a swift movement of his fingers. That finally got him Eiji's attention, apparently.

“Ash,” he said, quietly, and Ash couldn't stand the tenderness in his voice, so he leaned forward and kissed him.

Eiji kissed back, after only a short moment, kissed him with enthusiasm and kindness and more love than Ash ever thought he could have. And then Eiji's hand came up to the side of his neck, and just like that, Ash couldn't do it anymore.

He pulled back, taking a hard look at Eiji's confused face, then got up, went to his room and closed the door behind him.

Eiji gave him space, like he always did, didn't pry, just asked if he was alright over dinner.

“Peachy,” Ash said, and all he could think was, _He doesn't exist for your salvation._

“Eiji. Yo, Eiji. Quick question.”

“Yes?”

“What the _fuck_ was that?”

Eiji doesn't even turn around. “Just a hornet, probably.”

“Probably,” Ash echoes. “Fucking – it was like four inches big!”

“A giant hornet, then.”

“I hate this country,” Ash grumbles, “I hate it, I hate it so damn much – ”

“Stop whining,” Eiji cuts him off. “I have disinfectant and antihistamines in my backpack.”

Ash swears to God, his jaw is going to hit the ground any minute now. “You _knew _that these things would be here, ready to murder me? And you still lure me up here like, _come on, Ash-u-chan, sweetheart, it will be fun_ – ”

“I don't sound like that. And I've never called you sweetheart.”

“That's it. I'm breaking up _right now_ – ”

“Fine. More antihistamines for myself.”

At some point, Ash started sleeping in Eiji's bed.

It made Eiji very happy, even though Ash could tell he was so careful not to let this happiness spill over, not to make Ash feel like he had to do it for him. Ash didn't know how to explain to Eiji that it wasn't for his benefit at all, that Ash felt incredibly selfish every time he pulled up the covers and laid down next to Eiji, not touching, _he doesn't exist for your salvation_.

It wasn't long before Ash woke from another nightmare, except this time, it wasn't his.

Eiji was shifting around beside him, making gasping, strangled noises, like he couldn't get enough air. Ash stared at him for a moment, paralysed with shame, because how colossally stupid had he been? How had he not seen that he wasn't the only one with scars, how could he ever have thought that simply sending Eiji back to Japan would mean he was fine and safe from all the suffering that Ash would inevitably cause him, every damn time, because he had nothing to give but pain, he could never be more than the sum of his parts –

_Not everything is about you, you fucking moron_, he thought to himself, before shaking Eiji awake with a touch to his shoulder.

“Hey,” he said, gently, “hey.”

Eiji opened his eyes and curled away from him, reflexively; Ash dropped his hand. He wasn't the one with the nightmare, and yet his heart was beating too fast, like a bird that tried to fly out of its cage and crashed its head into the bars, over and over again.

“It's just a dream,” Ash said. In trying to keep the hurt out of his voice, he ended up sounding callous to his own ears.

Eiji nodded, rubbing at his eyes. “It happens,” he said, like it happened every night, and Ash had never felt worse in his life.

“What happened to your grandmother's husband?” he asked, in a wild attempt to change the subject.

It earned him a very confused (and very endearing) stare from Eiji. “Why do you want to know?”

“Saw a picture of him at your home. Just wondering.”

Eiji always knew exactly when he wasn't telling the whole truth, but he chose not to call him out on it this time. “He fought in the war when he was young. Came back with heavy PTSD, but there wasn't really any way for him to get therapy, back then. He had a happy marriage with my grandmother, but it wasn't enough. Killed himself when my mum was still a kid.”

Ash thought back to the picture of the man on the veranda with the small child in his arms, looking at the rain. Waiting, maybe, for something he had lost.

It isn't long before a drop of water hits Ash square on the forehead.

“It's raining,” he comments.

Indeed, the sky has darkened considerably. There's usually no storms this time of year, Eiji tells him, so it should be over soon. Still, they decide to take shelter underneath some trees and wait it out – it would be just Ash's luck to slip on a wet stone and break something.

“Someone's unusually quiet,” Eiji says with a sly smile and a nudge to his side. “Aren't you going to complain about the weather?”

“Nah,” Ash says, coolly leaning against a tree bark, because he'll be damned if he just stands there like a normal person. “I like the rain.”

There were days on which Eiji didn't get out of bed at all, if he didn't have to. Those were the days where Ash admitted to himself that he was in way over his head.

He always made up some kind of excuse to be away on these days, partly because he couldn't stand seeing Eiji like this and in turn hated himself for abandoning him, partly because someone had to go down to the supermarket, and whatever it was that was wrong with Ash, it always made him restless rather than immobile.

This was one of those days, except that when Ash came back with a carton of almond milk and a couple of eggplants, Eiji was sitting on the kitchen floor with red-rimmed eyes and tear tracks on his face.

Ash wished he'd stayed away longer; he wished he'd been back sooner.

He sat down across from him and waited.

“I did not mean for you to see that,” was the first thing that Eiji said, once his breathing had evened out.

“Tell me,” Ash said, even though the last thing he wanted was the confirmation that this was because of him.

“I was – I looked out of the window, and there was this man,” Eiji said. “He looked a little bit like Shorter, and I just – ”

Ash's fingers were itching with how much he wanted to reach out, show Eiji that he wasn't alone. He crossed his arms tightly instead, because there was no way he could touch Eiji with the hands that had pulled the trigger on his own best friend.

“Sorry,” Eiji was saying. “It feels – selfish, mourning him. You knew him much better than I did.”

“What the fuck are you on about,” Ash said. “That's some backwards logic you've got there.”

“I know.” With a sigh, Eiji got up and went about putting the groceries away. He stopped halfway to the fridge and turned around to look at Ash. “Also, pot and kettle.”

Ash cracked a grin that may even have been genuine; he didn't know anymore.

“We will be there soon,” Eiji says.

“You already said that half an hour ago,” Ash comments.

“Well, I mean it, this time,” Eiji replies.

Ash kicks a tiny reddish stone out of his way, right in front of Eiji's feet. “You aren't taking any pictures.”

“I guess not.”

“Why?”

Eiji kicks the stone back, lost in thought. “Some things are just better in your memory than they are on a picture. I want to get used to remembering the good things. It's better in the long run.”

"How conscientious of you."

"Let's switch back to Japanese."

The stone flies a little bit too far this time for Ash to do anything about it. He looks at Eiji instead, who is already waiting for him with a gentle smile.

"I'm proud of you, you know," Ash says on impulse, because they're climbing a mountain and he's allowed to say these things without having to go through hell first.

Ibe had asked Eiji to accompany him for another project, somewhere in Japan, this time.

Ash spent two weeks missing him.

He started hanging out in the university's library, just reading whatever he could get his hands on. It felt more like a habit than a hobby, accumulating all this knowledge when he still didn't have a clue what he wanted to do with it. Every time he read something new, he automatically thought about how he could use that to gain leverage, or possibly hurt someone, and it always took him a moment to get back out of these thoughts.

So when he overheard the group of students at the table across from his, he didn't immediately get what they were talking about.

“Look, I'm telling you, that's not a word – ”

“Yes, I swear, I saw it in a novel – God, what was it – ob-se – obsqui – ”

“I thought you were good at English!”

“I am, okay? Obsecial – obsi – ”

“Obsequious,” Ash hazarded without thinking.

“Yes, thank you!” one of the students called out, before they all turned around in surprise.

“Hang on,” another one of them said. “Are you from England?”

“America,” Ash said. It was weird to say it; to these students, his entire history up to this point was now summed up in that one word.

“Oh, great! Because I've been struggling with this essay for two hours, and Hanako keeps suggesting these stupid convoluted words that I really _don't need _– ”

“Hey, at least I'm trying to help, Sousuke over here is just criticising – ”

“Excuse me? My criticism is nothing but constructive – ”

When Ash went back home, it was with a list of phone numbers from students and a heartfelt invitation to please tutor their study group, seriously, English grammar looked so weird and the pronunciation was just driving them _insane_.

He was ready to throw the list away immediately, but he didn't. He folded it and tucked it into his pocket.

When Eiji came back, Ash kissed him against the fridge for a long time.

“I couldn't stop thinking about you,” Eiji said, his hands carefully and safely hanging on to Ash's sweater.

“Do you want me to touch you?” Ash said, feeling bolder than he had in a while.

Eiji swallowed hard, then nodded. “And you?” he asked, hands now minimally sliding over Ash's stomach.

Ash bit his lip and braced himself for Eiji's disappointment. “Face, neck. That's it.”

It always came out harsher than he meant it, and Eiji always accepted it, though Ash knew, when they were lying in bed together and Eiji had just come with his hands firmly tangled in Ash's hair, that he longed for nothing more than to touch him back. He never did, not when Ash rolled over and finished himself off without looking at Eiji, sometimes even with most of his clothes still on because it would just be too much, exposing himself to this tenderness that threatened to break his ribcage open.

Eiji did usually kiss his hair, afterwards, just a press of lips against his scalp. It burnt like wildfire; Ash let the flames eat him like the lynx that ate its own paw.

There's a tiny little river right next to the path, and Ash can't resist dipping his hands in.

“Cold?” Eiji asks. Ash splashes him with water in response.

They end up sitting there for a while, finishing the rest of the spiked tea (and yeah, true, Ash could have gone a little easier on the rum there). He's feeling pleasantly warm instead of sweaty, his arm looped around Eiji's waist and his fingers playing with the hem of his jacket.

“Funny,” he says. “I thought this would be full of hikers, but we've barely met anyone.”

“I thought the same thing,” Eiji agrees. “It's like we're the only two people left in the world.”

Ash smiles slyly. “Does that give you any ideas?”

Eiji slides a hand up Ash's thigh then, firm and possessive. It sends sparks of anticipation all the way up Ash's spine.

“We planned to go to the onsen after this, didn't we?” Eiji says, sounding extremely casual.

Ash shoves him, very lightly, so that it ends up as more of a caress, really. “Fucking tease,” he says.

“I was first raped when I was seven,” Ash told the therapist on their first meeting. “Doesn't matter though, I shot the guy in the stomach one of the times after that.”

The therapist crossed his legs. “That's terrible to hear,” he said, with just the right amount of regret, “but I'm glad you're being so open with it. We can talk about it, if you want to. And if you don't, feel free to change the topic anytime. I'm just here to listen.”

And just like that, Ash was at a loss. He felt incredibly childish all of a sudden. This person was getting paid to help him get better, and he _wanted_ to get better, damn it, and what was he doing instead? Using his trauma for shock value?

He nearly didn't go back, after that first time, out of shame, but then he did anyway because the guy had seemed nice enough and looked so sincere when he'd said 'See you next week'. He reminded Ash of Eiji, which maybe wasn't the healthiest comparison all things considered, but for Ash, at this point, it was a matter of lesser evil.

He let a few weeks go by before he told Eiji about these meetings. He also told him that it might not be a bad idea for Eiji to go see this guy, too, or maybe someone else like him, because surely that would motivate both of them to keep this up, since they were in this together, and all.

Eiji's hopeful smile shone like a thousand suns; in that moment, Ash fiercely wanted to preserve some of that hope for himself.

They reach the summit when the sun is still pretty high, illuminating the pine forest beneath them and even some of the city in the distance. The sky is bright blue now; the strong breeze that carried the clouds away is tugging at Ash's jacket, running windy fingers through his hair.

It feels a little like flying.

“Fuck,” Ash says with tears in his eyes.

“A true poet like your brother,” murmurs Eiji. Ash twines their fingers together.

He drinks in the landscape, until he can't anymore because Eiji has started to kiss him senseless like they're some disgustingly romantic couple that uses scenery as an excuse to make out.

It would be an utter lie, of course, for Ash to say he isn't completely on board with that. It's a good thing Eiji's arms are so tight around him, because his knees feel kind of weak right now.

“Next time,” Eiji says when he decides he's done with overwhelming Ash, “we're going up Mount Fuji.”

Ash lets his forehead fall against Eiji's shoulder.

“Give me a fucking break,” he groans.

_Si vis pacem, para bellum_, was one of the things Ash had read at some point. If you want peace, prepare for war. He'd always assumed that it was said by some cynical, salty asshole who thought being evil was just human nature, there was nothing good in the world, all that jazz.

He'd never stopped to consider that maybe it meant: If you wanted peace, you had better be ready to fight tooth and nail for it.

“What's that?” Eiji asked when he saw Ash scribbling a rough timetable on a piece of paper.

“Trying to work out a schedule,” Ash answered. “Hanako-san's little brother and his friends want their English lesson on Tuesday, except Tomoki has his violin lessons on Tuesday, so it would be better to move that over to Thursday, but Thursday is when Misato-san and her study group meet after uni for essay writing, so I'm trying to figure out the best way to run this. Also there's this middle school two blocks away – can you _believe_, they have so little funding they can't even afford a proper English teacher – so I've been helping out some kids there, and … ”

He trailed off when he noticed Eiji's stare.

“What,” he said.

“Nothing,” Eiji said. “Can I help in any way?”

“Get me a coffee, maybe,” Ash said, thoughts already back on the timetable. “I really need a breakthrough here.”

A mug with hot coffee appeared in front of him a few minutes later. He drank nearly all of it at once, leaning back in his chair.

“God, that was good,” he sighed. “I love you so much.”

Eiji, who had started to prepare their dinner, stopped dead in his tracks, fridge door open. It took Ash a few solid seconds to understand why.

“Fuck,” he said under his breath. “Fuck, is this really – is this the first time that I've said – ”

“It's fine,” Eiji said quickly. “I knew it anyway. It's fine – ”

“No – ” Ash ran a hand through his hair, stood up, closed the door to the fridge until he was nose to nose with Eiji. “Listen, no, it's not fucking fine, okay? You're allowed to want things, you can hold me to a standard, right, you have a right to be pissed when I'm being a cold asshole – ”

“But you're _not_,” Eiji cut him off, “Ash, you're so gentle with me, it's okay to take your time – ”

“And what, starve you?” Ash swallowed hard, but he sank his fangs in, waiting for the tendon to finally snap. “It hurts me to see you like this.”

Eiji laughed drily. “And you think it doesn't hurt me, to see you like this? You don't think I feel sorry every day, for not being enough?”

“I don't – I'm not expecting you to fix me!” Ash said, loud enough for it to ring through his own ears.

“Good, because neither am I!” Eiji shouted back. “But, Ash – I'm not going anywhere. When I said forever, I meant it. I meant it then, and I mean it now.”

Distantly, Ash registered that his breathing was probably too harsh right now. He tried to steady himself on the fridge, but the surface was too slippery, and the only viable alternative were Eiji's shoulders, so he held onto them and pressed his face into his neck.

“Good,” he said, as soon as he could get a word out. “Good, because I'm not leaving, either. I do love you, Eiji, so much. Even if – ” he swallowed again, “even if that's not always enough.”

“You're trying,” Eiji said into his shoulder. “And I'm trying. That's all anyone ever does. For me, that's enough.”

Ash didn't know what to do with that, other than wind his arms around Eiji and never let go.

Ash rarely thinks of the lynx, these days. Sometimes he imagines that the lynx finally broke through his stubborn bone and managed to drag himself away from the bear trap, slowly healing. Sometimes he sees the lynx bleed out from his self-inflicted wounds, dying, yes, but freed in a different way. Sometimes the lynx is still biting, still gnawing, still not done, although Ash knows that he will be, one day.

He rarely thinks of the leopard, either, because he has a bird with him who knows how to get back down from a mountain.

“Shall we go back down?” Eiji says after a while.

“Sure,” Ash says and takes his hand.


End file.
